Beck/Smith Hollywood

Sometimes I feel like I’ve stumbled into George Bailey’s alternate reality — a place where burlesque dancers with cleavage hanging out to there and low slung Spandex bottoms bump and grind in front of an audience of children.   That was the Pussycat Dolls on last night’s  Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards — another example of cringe-worthy sexualization of kids at too young an age.   C’mon girls.   You didin’t need to push your boobs on a bunch of eight-year-olds.  Wear something more appropriate.

— Stacy Jenel Smith

Jerry O'Connell

Jerry O’Connell is playing Mr. Mom on the set of wife Rebecca Romijn‘s pilot for a possible ABC series version of “The Witches of Eastwick” — and sounds like he couldn’t be happier about it.

“Nothing prepared me for what it would be like to raise twin girls,” he says of 3-month-old Dolly and Charlie. “When one quiets down, the other one starts up. At night, I am sleeping more than my wife — who is a saint. She has to get up,” he says of Rebecca, who is nursing the babies. “I watch the kids at work. It’s good — they like coming to another place. Although, she had a kissing scene today, and it must have been weird for the other actor, to know she has kids and a husband nearby,” adds Jerry, who tells us he pretty much stays off the set.

“I’ll tell you what’s funny,” he adds. “I really thought I was going to be a very strict father about what they could wear, when they could go out and all that. But now that they’re starting to smile at me, I just know they’re going to walk all over me … If I don’t see them for a couple hours, I miss them so much.”

Jerry has Lifetime’s original movie adaptation of Nora Roberts‘ “Midnight Bayou” coming up this Sunday, March 28, starring with Lauren Stamile and Faye Dunaway — as well as roles in the forthcoming big-screen chiller “Obsessed” with Beyonce and Idris Elba, and the upcoming movie comedy “Baby on Board” with Heather Graham. “I hate to say it, but it’s probably going to be quiet for a while now,” he says. “My wife is the one working. I want this series to work out for her first, then we’ll see about me.”

“Midnight Bayou” was shot in a real antebellum mansion outside New Orleans — and the authentic location for the atmospheric tale was one of the lures for Jerry. “Can you imagine if they’d tried to shoot this somewhere like Calgary?” he asks. “I didn’t really know Nora Roberts’ books before this — I’m not really her demographic,” he adds of the hugely popular and prolific romance writer. “But Rebecca knew this book very well. When I told her about the movie, she said, ‘Oh, it’s one of her best! Really spooky!’”

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: What a time it is for director Ken Kwapis. His big screen “He’s Just Not That Into You” — with its stellar ensemble of Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly and Bradley Cooper — has grossed more than $130 million so far.

He’s about to shoot the 100th episode of “The Office,” for which he’s served as key director since helming the pilot of the hit series. And his first movie, the 1985 “Sesame Street Presents Follow That Bird!” has been re-mastered and is being re-released by Warner Bros. on DVD this week.

The first “Sesame Street” feature, “Follow That Bird” — as in everybody’s favorite 8’2″ tall avian creature, Big Bird — was made when Kwapis was “a kid, like barely 25.” He flew to New York and met with Muppet creator/performer Jim Henson, performer/creative talent/director Frank Oz, and voice of Big Bird, Caroll Spinney. “It was overwhelming, but they were immensely generous,” recalls Kwapis, whose credits up ’til then included two after-school specials and a Student Academy Award for a film he made while attending grad school at USC.

Kwapis notes that making the movie may have been complicated, but “the beauty of the Muppets — and one of the things that was so visionary about Jim Henson — was that they have a very simple quality. I’ve worked with creatures that require five, six or seven technicians to work them — one controls the eyeballs, one the mouth and so on. When Jim did Kermit, there was one person — Jim put his hand into a little green piece of felt, and his knuckles did all the work. Grown men and women on the set just stopped in their tracks. I thought, ‘Gosh, if this is what they’re doing to my crew, it’s really going to be something.’ And it was. I think it still retains all its charm. I loved the idea of doing a film about the acceptance of difference, and I still do.”

AND: With “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2″ having pretty much tied up the stories of the much-loved characters played by America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel, chances for another “Traveling Pants” flick are pretty slim. Still, some of the principles aren’t ruling it out. Kwapis, who directed the original feature, notes, “I’d love to do another one, just to have the chance to hang out with all of them again.”

CASHING IN: “I Love Money 2″ is going strong, pushing toward its May 4 finale, and host Craig J. Jackson tells us he hopes this won’t be the last people will see of the popular VH1 reality show. “Hopefully it ends up being like ‘Survivor’ or ‘American Idol,’ where we stay on the air forever. I think this show can go on for as long as people are interested,” says Jackson. “It’s not like people are trying to fall in love with somebody, because you can get tired of watching that, but people never get tired of money. You might get tired of Flavor Flav or Brett Michaels, but how are you going to get tired of $250,000?”

Hugh Laurie

The list is long of show business luminaries — ranging from Emma Thompson. Mike Wallace and Billy Joel to Drew Carey and Harrison Ford — who have been victims of clinical depression. “House” star Hugh Laurie qualifies for that list, but he thinks that perhaps, “The problem is actually just as common for people in other fields. It’s just most interesting, for some reason, to read of entertainers and their problems. I personally regret ever having talked about having the problem. It labeled me with this depressed clown badge and became a much bigger part of my life than it deserved.”

The brilliant actor and comedian/accomplished singer and musician adds, “There must be a lot of depression among coal miners, though we never hear of it. But that’s outside my field of expertise. Actually, everything is beyond my field of expertise.”

He’s kidding about the latter. But serious when he talks of his background in England and observes that, as the son of a physician, “I grew up with a great reverence for medicine, but playing a doctor is slightly complicated because I’m obviously faking it. On the other hand, I think many people go through life being afraid that people will discovered they’re ‘faking it.’ Maybe my father did, too. Certainly actors have that fear. In fact, I think its every actor’s dread that he’ll be heckled on stage, or that it will be
discovered he’s not good enough. Believe me, it’s a very common fear.”

FAMILY MATTERS: Christopher Gorham returns to the tube April 9 in CBS’ “Harper’s Island” horror-mystery series, playing the groom in a wedding where guests start getting killed off one by one “I first read the script and I thought it was a really interesting idea. The script for the pilot was good. But more than that, I loved the idea of telling the whole story in 13 episodes,” says the actor. “It was shooting in Vancouver; I have kids and I didn’t want to be involved longer than 13 episodes.” Gorham’s the proud dad of seven and five-year-old sons and a two-month-old daughter. He says that right now, “I am very contentedly playing Mr. Mom, taking my sons to school, changing diapers. The baby is great. She’s waking up only twice, sometimes just once, at night.”

Gorham, whose last series role was as Henry, ex-boyfriend of America Ferrera’s “Ugly Betty,” adds that he was also lured to “Harper’s Island” by the fact Jon Turteltaub is aboard as writer-executive producer. “He can take something like ‘National Treasure,’ an idea that seems on its face it might be silly, and take it and make it something great, filled with heart and fun and adventure. If people stick with the show, they will be happy.”

CROWNING GLORY: Also hoping that viewers stick with her mid-season entry is Susanna Thompson of NBC’s much-anticipated “Kings,” which premieres Sunday, March 15. “If people could give it a good four episodes, you’ll watch it start to take off,” she’s convinced. “It comes on with gangbusters just with the pilot and then you’ve got the stories that are setting the tone and the environment for people. From what I’ve seen of the footage, it’s also visually unlike anything I’ve seen recently on television. It definitely has feature film quality, especially since Francis Lawrence, who did ‘I Am Legend,’ was directing,” touts Thompson, who plays Ian McShane‘s wife, Queen Rose Benjamin. “While it was really long days, the experience was fantastic because it was very much this bigger, amazing world that we all had to commit to at such a high level.”

Thompson goes on, “We’ve been saying it’s a modern/post-modern retelling of David and Goliath. As we’ve lived with the show and got each new episode handed to us, it kind of felt it was too big to live within those boundaries now. It’s very classic and biblical in a sense. It focuses on why we’re here and what we’re here doing. It’s big human stories. It’s the exploration of power and how it corrupts,” she tells us. “But the best way to describe it is if you take the template of some of the biblical stories, I don’t want to say the template of the Bible, just biblical stories, and you overlay those on top of this modern day monarchy, then that’s where we’re headed.”

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: Looking over the lists of pilots being shot this season, it doesn’t look like there’s much likelihood of a big comeback for scripted comedy anytime soon. Still, there are some interesting names in the mix. Cedric the Entertainer and Jason Biggs are among the funny guys lining up with potential series, Cedrick with his ABC-DreamWorks’ “The Law,” which would have him as a reserve duty sheriff training weekend volunteers in L.A. — and “American Pie’s” Biggs with his dysfunctional family comedy, “Happiness Isn’t Everything.” The very funny Mitch Hurwitz (“Arrested Development”) is among the creators of the latter, which helps.

Ann and George Lopez

BY MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

George Lopez reports that next month will mark the fourth anniversary of his kidney transplant, and “You know what? I feel fantastic. I’ve been healthy four of my 47 years, and it’s great. I sleep great. And it doesn’t pass me by a single day that there are people out there who are sick like I was and don’t even know it.”

Lopez and wife Ann — who donated one of her kidneys to George in an amazing medical match — have been deeply involved in trying to spread the word about kidney health and transplantation since he got well. Thursday (3/12), they will be hosting their annual “Keep It Hollywood” event to raise awareness for World Kidney Day at Guy’s North in Studio City, Calif.

The fact that Lopez managed to keep up with the demands of his career through the grinding exhaustion of his deteriorating health, pre-transplant, is a testimony to his force of will. Looking back, he says, “You know, the odds are against anyone succeeding in this business, and I worked a long time for it — and you know when you have something on the hook, you don’t give it up, no matter what. Also, I grew up in a family where you went to work when you were sick.

“On the other hand, with my family, sometimes if you were well, and it happened to be a really nice day, you wouldn’t go in,” he deadpans.

George has had countless letters from and encounters with people who’ve been touched by his story. “The greatest thing is when you see somebody who’s been helped,” he says. One example would be a woman in her 50′s who George met after one of his comedy concerts. She needed a kidney transplant, her daughter was a match and willing to donate to her. However, the daughter told George, ” ‘My mother thinks it’s going to destroy my life if I give her a kidney.’ I said, ‘Don’t you want to be around for your grandkids? You can live with one, resume your lives and be a healthy family.’ She had it done, in Phoenix, and things have gone good for them. They send me updates all the time.”

‘Idol’ 13 Reveal Plans, Makeovers, Hopes

We caught up with “American Idol’s” top 13 contestants as they celebrated in style at the swanky Los Angeles nightclub Area after last week’s taping. While being on the show is still sinking in for some, others are already planning their next big move on stage. “Hopefully I can get back on my piano so I can show them that I can arrange music,” said soul singer Matt Giraud. “You know how David Cook did. He just changed up everything. If I can show them that I can do that, too, and pull it off, then it’s a good thing. We’ll see what happens.”

Adam Lambert admitted that talk of the “American Idol” makeover has been discussed, but he doesn’t plan on changing much. “They can make suggestions, and I’m open to that. I like collaborations, but I don’t really want to change how I represent myself visually. It’s part of the artistic expression,” he noted while cloaked in lots of makeup, black hair with blue highlights and a black suit with black sequins. Artistic expression indeed! However, other things will be changing soon for the singer. Gone are the days of anonymity! “People screaming my name at the mall was kind of an unexpected thing,” he added. “I hope to maintain a private life. It is what it is, though. It comes with the territory. I’m comfortable with who I am, so hopefully everyone else will be, too.”

For the other singers, they’re just preparing themselves for what’s to come, which means being away from their comfort zones for a while. “Singing is my passion, but I miss my daughter,” admitted Alexis Grace. “I’m a stay-at-home mom, and I’ve been with her every day of her life. I haven’t been able to see her in a couple of weeks, so that’s been a big change for me. She’s at home in Memphis with my family. She’s probably watching me on TV, though, going crazy.”

INDUSTRY BITS: Forces on the forthcoming Matt Damon “Adjustment Bureau” movie are certainly giving themselves ample time to find the key female dancer for the movie, which isn’t slated to begin production ’til September. They’re already looking now for the young beauty, a principle in a big-city modern dance troupe, for the feature loosely based on Philip K. Dick‘s “Adjustment Team” story. It has to do with a politician (a salesman in the original) who keeps being thwarted from beginning a love affair with a dancer — opening the way for his questioning of the nature of reality and manipulative forces controlling our fates.

Casting is also underway for the part of Adam Carolla‘s annoying slacker stepson in his “Ace in the Hole” CBS pilot. The comic/radio host/actor will be playing a highly opinionated driving school instructor — something Carolla himself used to do.

And casting is underway for subsidiary roles in “Hung” — the Anne Heche-Thomas Jane-Jane Adams half-hour comedy show in the works at HBO.

With reports by Emily Feimster.

Belinda Carlisle

BY MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

Many of this year’s celebrity “Dancing with the Stars” contestants have youth on their side, but the Go Go’s Belinda Carlisle tells us she has her own secret weapons. “I chant every day and do a ton of yoga. Besides keeping you flexible, it really does change you emotionally and keep you calm,” says Carlisle, who is a dedicated Buddhist. “I’ve been practicing heavily for four years, and I just know from experience it makes a big difference in everything. I think if I didn’t have that, I’d be a lot more crazed.”

Carlisle, who certainly had her wilder days with the Go Go’s, says she’s also being assiduous when it comes to taking care of herself. “Everybody knows that I have to be in bed by 8:30. It takes precedence over everything else. I’m 50,” she points out. “I’m one of the oldest contestants, so I have to take extra care. Plus, this is a unique experience, so I might as well give it my all. I don’t want to do anything half-assed.”

With the new season of “DWTS” launching tonight (3/9), Carlisle tells us she’s just trying to enjoy the ride as long as she’s lucky enough to be on it. “I started the first couple of weeks feeling like I was 100 years old, but now I’m adapting physically. I’m finding the salsa pretty easy. I learned it in three days. The waltz took two weeks to learn because it’s about restraint, and that’s something that I don’t do very well,” she adds with a laugh.

Luckily she has a good partner to keep her in check. “I don’t think I could have a better partner than Jonathan [Roberts]. We have great chemistry, and we have a lot of fun, which I think is the main thing.”

THE BIG SCREEN SCENE: “We don’t have a clue yet what she’s got,” says filmmaker Johnathan Demme — referring to his “Rachel Getting Married” star Anne Hathaway.

“I have to laugh because people have the perception that Anne is really good at certain kinds of things, and then every time she does something new, she redefines herself. Did you see her sing and dance on the Oscar show?” he asks. Of course, Hathaway was a nominee this year for Demme’s movie — which gets its DVD release Tuesday (3/10) — for playing the difficult, fresh-from-rehab sister of the title character played by Rosemarie DeWitt. He says of Hathaway, “She’s my new daughter — don’t tell her father. If she chooses her parts well, she’s going to blow our minds again and again and will create a body of work up there with the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Denzel Washington — any of the greats. Now she’s playing the White Queen in Tim Burton‘s ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ and I can’t wait to see what she does with that.”

In fact, he says, it was the prospect of making the movie with Hathaway that convinced him to do it. The “Silence of the Lambs” Oscar-winning director, whose credits also include “Philadelphia” and “the Manchurian Candidate,” has been sticking to documentaries for a while, because that’s the way he likes it.

He’s soon to debut his “Neil Young Trunk Show” concert movie at the SXSW Film Festival — and is currently filming a documentary about the late Bob Marley for which he’s been traveling to Jamaica. “This is a healthy place for me to be. I don’t function that well in kind of formalized situations. I’ve done all that,” Demme says. “I like doing things where you don’t have to worry about opening up in 1,000 theaters. You don’t have to return a kajillion dollars. What I’m doing is a blast without the stress.”

HERE ‘N’ THERE: Country star Big Kenny Alphin is biting off an awfully big acting challenge for himself with his “Free Like Me” independent feature that’s set to roll next month. He’s playing an alcoholic, depressed rock star who can’t stand to let anyone touch him, and who goes off to the Caribbean to drink himself into oblivion. Casting is underway for subsidiary characters, including the housekeeper he encounters who starts him on a turnaround.

LeVar Burton is getting ready to do a staged reading of a piece called “The Caterer” at the Whitefire Theater in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. It’s described as the story of a man who “sells you your appropriate death.” Shivers! Cynthia Watros is also aboard.

And you have to wonder about a casting breakdown that went out for a new celebrity-pranking reality show. Forces involved were supposedly looking for stars interested in pulling pranks on friends and fans — with a nice little fee to go on top of it. And we do mean little: $100. Maybe the notice itself is a prank.

With reports by Emily Feimster.

BY MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

Jordana Spiro of "My Boys"

Jordana Spiro is certainly keeping her sense of humor about the fact that they’re doing a short season of her TBS “My Boys” series. “We’re right in the thick of shooting right now on No. 5 of our whopping nine episodes,” she says. “The economy is hitting everybody hard. It’s obviously changing the amount of shows that are being produced. I guess I should be glad we’re not shooting them on a iFlip video and posting them on Facebook.”

In fact, Jordana is well aware that the popular show, in which she plays a sportswriter surrounded by the men in her life, is in an enviable position. “I felt like we had something very natural and easy and really fun from day one — the writers are so funny and strong, and have such a clear vision of what they wanted to do. And TBS has been very good to us in terms of giving us a chance to evolve,” she says of the series, which has its third season premiere March 31.

As far as being one of a comparative handful of scripted comedies that’s managed not only to hang on, but to thrive in these times, she notes, “It’s tricky, but I think the cream does rise to the top. Right now, everyone is interested in voyeurism. Maybe that’s like a momentary explosion that will die down. Let’s hope, right? I have to tell you, I would just make a super boring reality show.”

Spiro also has the big-screen “The Goods: The Don Ready Story” coming up, with Jeremy Piven, Will Ferrell and James Brolin, who plays her dad. “It seems every part I’m doing these days involves hanging out with a bunch of guys. I love it,” she says.

AND: Bobby Cannavale is staying philosophical about the fate of his March 31-debuting ABC “Cupid” series — which has seen its episode order slashed from 13 to eight to seven. “I take it all in stride. There are so many pilots that haven’t gotten picked up, we’re still ahead of that. It’s still seven more episodes than I’m used to doing,” says the hunky star of “Third Watch” and “The Station Agent” fame — who plays a man who believes he’s the Roman god of love, and maybe he is, in the forthcoming show. “It’s like when people ask me if I think it’s going to be a hit. I don’t know. I know I really like the show, and I’m really proud of it. I don’t know what it’s going to do or why they make the decisions they make — except that they’re driven by economics.”

AND: Nathan Fillion shrugs about the fact that his Monday (3/9)-debuting ABC “Castle” drama has wrapped its first season with 10 episodes, reduced from the 13 originally planned. “It’s something that’s happened across the network, and it’s happened worse to other shows than ours,” says the suave and charismatic actor, who plays a freewheeling mystery writer in the new show. “Everyone is screaming ‘Economy’ at the moment. I just know that at ‘Castle,’ we’re all really aware that we’re happy to be working.”

ON A PHILOSOPHICAL NOTE: “Survivor” creator Mark Burnett may be one of TV’s most successful producers, but he had some less than glamorous jobs along the way. However, the British media mogul says the secret to his success is that he made the most out of every experience. “When I came to America, I was a nanny — basically a nanny/servant for a wealthy Beverly Hills home. It sounds very unusual for a young English guy in America, but you know what, I made the best of it. I learned to enjoy it,” he tells us.

“Prior to that, I was in the British parachute regiment. It was extremely tough, but I learned to enjoy it. I’ve also worked on a farm. I spent days shoveling cattle s—, and I was also a milk delivery driver in London. None of them were bad jobs,” he adds. “That doesn’t come into our family beliefs. You have to make the best of everything and be glad you have a job.”

Now his job is being televised for all the world to see, including season 18 of “Survivor: Tocantins,” which is currently airing on CBS. Burnett also has over 13 other shows on the air or in production, so he’s certainly not complaining now. “Just to live in America was an unimaginable dream for me. Every day is a blessing.”

A REAL FRIEND: Michael Shulman feels he owes a debt of gratitude to his former “Party of Five” castmate, Lacey Chabert, for coming aboard his first indie film as producer-star — “Sherman’s Way.” The coming-of-age/buddy road trip saga, which Shulman has shown at a string of film festivals, goes into limited release today (3/5). Shulman jumped into the project after graduating from Yale. “I called Lacey and said, ‘I need you to be a part of it — I just don’t know what that part is yet.’ And she said OK. We worked together as kids, in New York in ‘Les Miserables’ and in L.A. We filmed most of the movie in the middle of nowhere in California, where there were no working cell phones and no email and they closed the restaurant at 6 p.m., not opened it,” says the New Yorker. “Lacey flew to be there. Then she flew to New York to do a scene there. And she just has a small part in the film. I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”

With reports by Emily Feimster.

COPYRIGHT 2009 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.